TALKS! Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of Detroit

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Check out Shaping San Francisco’s current Public TALKS and other public programming at ShapingSF.org.

How can we use history to make a positive intervention in a complex, troubled city that is working hard to build its future? LOST LANDSCAPES OF DETROIT (2010, 70 mins.) presents a diverse and vibrant city from 1917 through 1970 as it grew and changed, showing its residents, their activities and the places they lived and work, many now gone. Avoiding trendy “ruin porn,” the show aims to blend nostalgia and provocation. Maker Rick Prelinger first presented it at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) in winter 2010, and this will be its first public showing outside Detroit. Like other LOST LANDSCAPES events, much of the source material is silent. Therefore, the audience is cordially invited to make the soundtrack: questions, comments, identifications, discussion are all welcome. We hope the Detroit diaspora will join all those interested in the past and future of what’s become one of North America’s most dynamic and exciting cities.